Gumbo Chafing

[Tim Twiss]

Okay, so imagine this. Briggs' never arranged any tunes. He just put melodies up. You would have another Gumbo Chaff book. Almost all those tunes are vocal tunes...inseperable from the batch in Gumbo Chaff. Go down through the book and think about it. Obviously people were singing these before they became instrumentals. These are arrangements of vocal tunes. Either they set the tone for the style, or followed it....gotta be one of the 2. My guess is that people were playing like that (similar to Briggs' arrangements) for a long time. Think about it...it is what the instrument does best. BEING A BANJO.  IMHO, it does not detract from the tune. It just puts a nice spin on it....suitable and interesting to listen to. They also double as accompaniments, as many of us us them. There is a "character", or style defined by this work. Not the only game in town I'm sure....but a strong one.

Had Brigg's not written them down, I'm not sure what we could use to dig original styings out. Baur was right...I think.

[Nicholas A Bechtel]

Hey Paul thanks for sharing this. I swear there is so much more to these songs then what is at face value upon first being introduced.  Cheers!

[Tim Twiss]

Backside....what a challange to sahpe all those words around the melody. Whew! First verse settled down pretty good. Always a tussle deciding how much of the blck dilect to include. Too much and you sound stupid....not enough, and you sound stupid...hmmmmm

[Strumelia]

I figure we just should embrace our stupidity if our stupidity is unavoidable.  Remember the Japanese saying: "We are fools whether we dance or not...so we may as well dance".   ;)

If one's Backside is Chafing, a little talc might sooth the situation!